Desiring Machine

I am a huge fan of the Clash and this really upsets me. A man in the UK was detained and questioned for three hours as a terrorist suspect because he listened to the Clash’s “London Calling” in the taxi on the way to the airport. I guess it is a good thing he wasn’t listening to Guns of Brixton, or else he might have been detained indefinitely. But the bottom line is that this is really absurd. And if we continue to live with this much pent up fear then we have already let the real terrorists win. If this is the case then Western Civilization has lost more than a few thousands lives, it has lost its mind and its soul.

On the other hand maybe it really is as bad in the UK as the V for Vendetta film makes it all out to be. There really is something amiss, but you just can’t put your finger on it.

That being said, The Clash are kind of radical in a nice commodified way with a good back beat. And if more people started listening to the Clash then perhaps there would be some truth to Vendetta’s adage: “People shouldn’t fear their governments. Governments should fear their people.” And in my mind that is not necessarily a bad thing for civilization.